


Angel of Chaos

by MrProphet



Series: Demiurge [6]
Category: Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 20:45:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10726896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	Angel of Chaos

_Bavaria, 1944_

Daniel Jackson checked his gear and tried not to think too much about where he was. Most of his kit had been left in the mad dash from the Sentinel 2 complex on P7F-303, but he still had a light pack with basic rations and survival gear. Once he had taken stock and put a dressing on his injured hip, he got up and hobbled out of the wood towards the outskirts of a small town. He looked up at the great, turreted castle that stood on the high hill above and hoped against all reason that the imposing silhouette would have changed. Of course, it had not; it was still the massive and imposing form of Castle Falkenstein.

This fact was worrying Daniel, for several reasons. Firstly, he knew that he had been several _billion_ miles from Bavaria mere seconds before. Secondly, he knew that there was no way he could have arrived here so quickly without the aid of a Stargate and, thirdly, while he was sure that he _had_ been travelling through a wormhole, there was now no Stargate to be seen. Far more worrying than any of these, however, was that to Daniel's sure and certain knowledge, not only should the castle at Pfronten be in ruins, the castle above him had, quite simply, _never been built_.

The town – not Pfronten itself, but a small village with the name Ingen on the sign – was worryingly dark; not a single streetlight was lit. As he came closer, he saw that there were few enough streetlights in the first place. The silence was oppressive and, as Daniel approached the first of the houses, the rank stench of death and decay wafted towards him on the gentle night breeze.

He saw the first body lying in a doorway and ran towards it. At first he thought that the woman had dyed a dark stripe in her flaxen hair, but when he came closer he saw that what looked black in the moonlight was really the dark red-brown of dried blood.

Forcing down a throat full of bile, Daniel knelt beside the woman and examined her cold, limp body. From the look of it, the woman had been struck in the back of the head as she attempted to flee the house; there was blood on her hands, as well as in her hair. Her clothes looked old-fashioned, which gave Daniel his first inkling of what might have happened to him, if not to her.

Trying to touch the body as little as possible, Daniel searched the woman's pockets. He could not have hoped for a better source of information than a Nazi identity card, but that was hardly comforting. It seemed that he had come down with a case of time travel, but that still did not explain why a castle that simply should not have existed loomed over him.

Daniel gently turned the woman on her back and compared her face to the image of a prettily smiling woman in the card. It was hard for him to believe that the two were the same woman; Frau Matilda Metzler and her corpse. The face before him was distorted; warped, perhaps in pain, but it looked more like rage. Her lips were frozen in a snarl and her eyes bulged. Her lips were flecked with bloody foam.

Sickened, Daniel stood and looked away. That was when he saw a second body and, when he averted his eyes from that, he saw a third, and a fourth. The street was strewn with corpses, all bearing some mark of violence, and the gutters of the town were thick with clotted blood. Even animals had not been exempt from the slaughter.

Daniel doubled up and retched. He had seen many terrible things in his time with the SGC, but this was different. This was Earth; if appearances were to be believed.

A scream echoed between the houses, seeming to give voice to the anguish and horror in Daniel's heart. It came again and Daniel recognised it as a baby's cry. He swallowed hard and ran towards the cry, trying not to let the carnage affect him. He made that plaintive wail his focus, blotting out all but that one sound. It led him to the yard behind a butcher's shop, and then to a large dog kennel. The dog itself lay dead outside the back door of the shop, its muzzle flecked with blood and foam. There was something about the hound that was sickeningly similar to Frau Metzler.

"Hello!" Daniel called. "If there's anyone in there who can understand me, I'm a friend. I'm coming in, now."

Keeping one hand where it could clearly be seen and the other out of sight, holding a pistol, Daniel moved in front of the kennel. Within, he saw a young girl – no more than about twelve years old – with a baby in her arms; she had her back to him as she rocked the infant, trying desperately to shush its cries. She had a bottle with a teat and was trying to quiet the baby with milk.

"Hello," Daniel said, softly. When the girl made no response, he reached out and touched her gently on the shoulder.

The girl cried out in alarm. Clutching the child to her chest with her left arm, she dropped the bottle and snatched up a heavy kitchen knife with her right hand and slashed at Daniel. Some of Jack's training must have rubbed off at last, because Daniel reacted without thought; he swayed back from the blade, then reached in and caught the girl's wrist in his left hand. With his right arm, he reached around and pinned the girl gently against him, trying not to crush the infant.

The girl began to scream, setting the child off again.

"It's okay!" Daniel said, trying to be heard over the shrieks _and_ maintain a gentle tone as well. "Ich bin ein Freund. Mein Name ist Daniel Jackson; Ich werde nicht Sie verletzen."

"Sie Mörder!" the girl shrieked. Her voice was slurred and barely coherent.

"Ruhe unten," Daniel insisted. "Stoppen Sie bitte, mich zu kämpfen."

Apparently realising that Daniel was too strong for her, the girl did stop struggling. "Bitte verletzen Sie nicht meine Schwester," she begged.

Daniel took a deep breath and released the girl. She scrabbled away to the back of the kennel and pressed herself to the wall. Daniel put away his pistol and approached, hands held up. Very gently, he took the knife from the girl's shaking hand, then – with a little more difficulty – relieved her of the wailing baby. He bounced the child gently, shushed her and opened her blanket to see if she was injured. The smell hit him like a hammer blow.

With practiced hands, Daniel laid the baby down and unpinned her cloth diaper. He had changed Llew's diaper often enough and his hands remembered how. He cast the old cloth out into the yard, cleaned the girl up as best he could and improvised a new wrapping from the triangular bandage in his first aid kit.

"Was hier geschah?" he asked, as he put the final pin in place. The girl made no reply. He looked up at her and asked again. "Was geschah?"

The girl squinted intently at his face.

Daniel nodded as understanding came over him; no wonder she had not responded to his words earlier. He took the small electric lantern from his pack and switched it on, so that the light filled the small space. He carefully cleaned his hands, then reached into his pocket and produced an energy bar. He peeled off the wrapper and handed it over to the girl. She sniffed, warily, and then took a bite.

A smile suffused her face. "Es ist gut!"

Daniel smiled at her reaction to the sweet, chocolaty mass, and then allowed her to eat while he set up his stove and warmed the milk for the baby.

Only when both girls were fed – and one of them had been burped – did Daniel look the older child directly in the eye and say, very slowly and in German, "My name is Daniel."

The girl watched his lips and nodded her understanding. "I'm Magda," she replied. "This is Lisl."

"Your sister?"

Magda nodded again.

"It isn't healthy here," Daniel said, "and it isn't safe, either. We need supplies, then we should go into the woods. I think I saw a lodge as we came in; that should do for shelter."

"There is a shop," Magda told him. "We can get food there."

"Tell me where," Daniel said. "I'll get what I can and bring it back here. You stay and look after your sister."

 

To Daniel's great relief, the store was free of bodies, although a smear of bloody handprints on the door warned him against going into the back room and two dogs had torn each other to pieces in the street outside. He searched the shelves and found plenty to choose from. The fresh produce was still fresh and the bread was only slightly stale. Whatever the cause of this massacre, it could not have occurred more than a day ago.

Daniel found some bags and took a selection of canned, fresh and dry goods. There was no bottled water, but he was able to empty and refill several wine bottles, and he took a bottle of brandy and several of milk as well. The bottles were all glass and the bags were heavy, but he did not plan on carrying them far. As an afterthought, he took some cloth diapers and ransacked the drugs counter to find some analgesics and antiseptic for his hip.

Only when he was ready to leave did Daniel finally summon up enough courage to look at the magazine rack. A copy of _Der Angriff_ told him that the last issue of the newspaper had reached the shop for sale on Monday 13 th March, 1944. A stand of picture postcards rose behind the rack and Daniel took one, which showed the castle. On the back of the card, he was informed that it showed 'Schloß Falkenstein:  Der größte Triumph des Hellseherkönigs Ludwig II von Bayern', which was more or less what he had been afraid of.

A guidebook told him that work on the castle had begun in 1885, working to a combination of the designs of Christian Janks, Georg Dollman, Max Shultz and Julius Hoffmann. Construction had been curtailed by the death of Ludwig in 1886 – which was all as Daniel remembered it – but then, in 1889, a man with the unlikely name of Peter Abelard had appeared. An explorer crippled in a climbing accident in Kathmandu, he had devoted himself to writing the definitive biography of Ludwig and had discovered the plans for the unfinished project, concealed in the castle of Neuschwannstein. He had privately funded the completion of Castle Falkenstein as 'a gift to the German people'.

The guide noted that Abelard he had tried to persuade the government to move to the finished castle, but with no success. Abelard had become a recluse and died soon after, passing the castle to a complete stranger, one Wolfgang Caine, who ran it as a tourist attraction until 1914, when he offered it to the Kaiser as a campaign headquarters. _His_ successor, a man named Klemper, finally managed to interest someone in the castle, donating Falkenstein to the Reich in 1938, after he himself had joined the SS. He was described in the book as a close friend of the Reichsführer-SS.

Reluctantly, Daniel left his consideration of the castle's history. He stuffed the guidebook into one of his shopping bags and returned to the kennel.

"Miss me?" he asked.

Magda nodded. "Are we ready to leave now?" she asked.

"Yes," Daniel agreed. "Let's go."

The moon emerged from behind the clouds as they left the silent village behind them, but no light fell across the three weary travellers. They walked in the looming shadow of Castle Falkenstein.

*

The main gate of Castle Falkenstein was a set of double-doors almost fifteen feet high, but set in the left–hand door was a smaller portal. It was this door that opened and disgorged a squad of SS troopers, led by a most unusual figure: a woman, dressed in a black leather jacket and pants of a military cut, but bearing no insignia of rank. Her clothes hugged a figure that was well worth hugging and her bobbed blonde hair framed an angelic face, set in a dour scowl of universal disapproval. There was no mistaking that she was in command of the unit, but she carried herself more as a fine lady than as an officer.

The soldiers followed the woman down the path from the castle to the town of Pfronten, where she requisitioned a truck to carry them around the edge of the hill to the village of Ingen.

"Is it safe?" the Scharführer asked warily.

"Do you think she would send _me_ if it were not?" the woman demanded impatiently.

"Of course not, Frau Zelig," the man replied, hastily.

"There is no lasting danger from this weapon," Anile Zelig assured her troops. "Its effect may be invisible, but that does not mean it can linger after the device is deactivated; we will be perfectly safe as we search the village. Remember," she added, sternly, "if there _are_ survivors, they are to be taken alive, _at any cost_. They are not to be killed, even if the choice is between your life and theirs. Believe me; if you kill one whom the Frau Doktor wishes brought in alive, you would be best advised to turn your weapons on yourselves."

The soldiers shivered, although only the Scharführer had ever met the commander of Castle Falkenstein in person. There was not one of them who did not fear Frau Zelig and they knew that Frau Zelig feared the Frau Doktor; that was enough for them to hold her in an almost religious dread.

The truck drew to a halt and the troops disembarked. For a moment they froze in horror at the sight of the slaughter.

"Make a thorough search," Zelig ordered. "Every house, every outbuilding; leave no stone unturned. The Frau Doktor's work demands thoroughness." She smiled at their discomfort. "And a strong stomach."

*

The lodge that Daniel had seen was a sort of hunting cabin. It was well-hidden in the trees and quite well appointed. Daniel closed the shutters before he lit the lanterns, and then took the risk of making a fire in the small stove so that he could warm the room and cook a simple meal for himself and Magda. He put a second pan on to heat some more milk for Lisl.

When he turned from the range, Daniel saw that Magda had curled up on one of the big, soft chairs and fallen fast asleep. In sleep she looked peaceful and Daniel was obliged to take three or four years from his estimate of her age; she could not have been more than eight. She had removed her headscarf to release a mass of coppery curls and she had one thumb lodged soundly in her mouth.

Leaving the stew to simmer, Daniel fetched a blanket and laid it over Magda. He picked up Lisl and then sat quietly, feeding the infant and then rocking her to sleep. He sat for almost an hour, simply holding the baby in his arms and watching her sister sleeping the sleep of the innocent. Only when he could not possibly keep the food on the stove any longer did he regretfully shake Magda gently by the shoulder and lead her to the small table to eat.

"This is good," Magda said.

"I thought I should cook the fresh stuff first," Daniel replied. "There's tinned rice pudding and pears for dessert."

Magda grinned happily.

"I'm not sure what we're going to do tomorrow," Daniel admitted. "I figure we do what we can to head for the border and get out of Germany. Something isn't quite right here and I think we need to be elsewhere." He felt a little guilty for not investigating the slaughter, but he needed time to clear his head and he could not do that with Nazis breathing down his neck.

"Tell me a little about yourself, Magda," Daniel suggested.

Magda shrugged. "My parents own the bakery. Vati is the baker and Mama helps him and looks after us. She spends most of her time with Lisl since Lisl was born. Vati's helper, Garth, looks after Rolf – my dog – and..." She broke off.

"It's okay," Daniel told her. "You don't need to tell me anything you don't want to."

"I just remembered that they were dead," Magda said. "Mama, Vati, Rolf..."

"And Garth?" Daniel asked.

Magda shook her head. "Garth wasn't in town when the noise came," she explained.

"The...noise?"

"I knew there was a noise because they put their hands over their ears; Mama and Vati. We were all in the kitchen. They put their hands over their ears, then Vati started shouting," she went on. "He shouted and shouted and shouted, but I couldn't follow what he was saying; Mama was screaming. I saw..." Magda's voice began to waver. "Vati started to spit blood," she finished. "Mama was bleeding too; blood oozing from her mouth."

Daniel shuddered.

"Then Mama..." Magda's voice cracked.

Daniel got up from his seat and crouched down by her chair. He laid a hand across her shoulders and drew her head against his chest. He shushed her and murmured platitudes that he knew she could not hear, but he must have been doing something right, because she grew calm again.

"Mama picked up her knife and stabbed Vati in the chest," Magda whispered. "Then she looked at me and her eyes..." Tears welled up in the little girl's eyes. "She wanted to kill _me_ ," she sobbed. "She turned to get another knife; I picked up Lisl and I ran. Lisl tried to bite my fingers and I almost dropped her, but I kept hold and I ran out into the yard and Rolf came at me. He had blood on his mouth and his eyes were rolled up and white! I tried to run back, but Mama came out with the knife and I tripped and fell on my back."

Daniel closed his eyes, as though he could block out the hideous images that the girl's words woke in his mind.

"Rolf ran after me, but Mama kicked him and he attacked her. They fought and...and I hid in the kennel. That was all I knew until Garth came back. I think I may have fainted," she confessed.

Daniel sat back so that she could see his mouth. "I'm sorry," he said, "but you're safe for now." He took out a packet of Kleenex and wiped her eyes. "What happened to Garth?" he asked. He did not think that the baker's boy had died and he felt that she needed to tell him something less tragic.

"He was fetching wood when the noise came," Magda explained. "He came back and found us in the kennel. He brought Lisl's bottle and told me to go to his house while he went for help. He said that it was quiet there, but..."

"But you didn't want to go through the streets?" Daniel asked. "I don't blame you."

Magda gave a weak smile.

"You're very brave," Daniel told her sincerely. He took her hand and squeezed it gently. "I mean that."

"Thank you," Magda replied.

"Tomorrow, we'll head out after Garth," Daniel decided. "I'll get you to safety, then...Then I'll try to find my friends and do something about this and work out how to get home and...And then we'll see," he sighed.

 

Daniel woke when a sharp sound cut through the cold air. It was still dark and Daniel did not think he had been asleep for very long. The sound came again and Daniel groaned. Magda had fallen asleep curled up against his chest and he did his best to rise quickly without disturbing her. He moved Lisl – who had been nestled between them – so that she was held securely in Magda's arms, picked up his pistol and went through to the front room.

All was silent, until Daniel was beginning to think that he had dreamed the disturbance, but then the barking of hounds rang out once more. The sound was louder this time; closer. With his P90 abandoned on a distant planet in the far future, Daniel did not like his chances of holding off a siege. He turned and hurried back into the bedroom, shook Magda awake and half-dragged her to her feet.

"We are in danger," he told her. "We have to leave now. I'll try to drop you off somewhere safe, then lead them away?"

"Lead who away?" Magda asked as she pulled on her shoes, oblivious to the baying in the woods.

"Someone is tracking us with dogs," he told her. "Ready?"

Magda lifted Lisl and held her close. "Yes, Daniel," she replied.

The barking had ceased; Daniel wished he could believe that was a good sign. He took Magda's free hand and they hurried to the door; their provisions lay abandoned on the table. Daniel released the bolts and they walked out.

Straight into the sights of half-a-dozen submachine guns.

"I just suck at this stuff," Daniel sighed. He thought how much better his team mates would have done and felt a moment of desperation at the reminder that he did not even know if they were still alive.

"Legen Sie die Pistole aus den Grund und heben Sie Sie Hände, langsam an," one of the soldiers demanded.

Daniel could see little alternative. He carefully lifted the Berretta from its holster and laid it on the ground at his feet. He kicked it carefully away and folded his hands on top of his head. At his side, Magda was trembling like a frightened deer.

With an arrogant swagger and superior smile, a leather-clad blonde emerged from the shadows. "You will come with us to the castle," she announced. At a signal from her, the soldiers lowered their weapons. "You shall be given quarters and food and then you will be interviewed regarding the...tragic incident at your village."

Her words were soothing, but her voice was as hard as cut glass and she spoke of the 'tragic incident' as calmly as another woman might refer to something amusing that had happened the other day. Her grey eyes were utterly cold.

The Scharführer came forward and took Lisl from Magda's arms. Magda protested, but the man held the infant carefully and tucked her inside his greatcoat. He called to one of his cohorts, a great bear of a man, who slung his MP40 as he approached and lifted Magda into his arms.

"I don't get carried then?" Daniel asked.

The woman smiled. "Only if you force us to...subdue you," she replied, her eyes almost begging him to resist. He declined to give her the satisfaction.

Two men went in to search the hut; a third located Daniel's sidearm on the ground. He looked it over and brought it to the attention of his commander.

"Intriguing," the woman said. "I've never seen such a sophisticated design. I do not know what you were doing with these two children," she told Daniel, "but it seems clear that you are a stranger to Ingen. What is your name?"

"Dr Daniel Jackson," he replied, confident that the name would mean nothing to her.

The grey eyes widened in amazement. "Jackson?" she asked, incredulous. "Scharführer! We move out, now. The Frau Doktor will want to see this one immediately."

Daniel groaned. The only conclusion he could draw was that one or other of his team mates had been captured and questioned and, if they had revealed his name, tortured. "Great," he muttered. "Just great."

As his squad moved out, the Scharführer heard a noise in the trees. He turned, bracing his MP40 against his hip while the baby was held under his coat. "Meine Dame..." he began.

"I said move out!" the woman snapped. "No delays."

"But I think there is someone..."

"Move!"

The Scharführer sighed. "Ja wohl, Meine Dame," he agreed.

The squad moved away. Once they were out of sight, a dark-haired woman moved out of the trees and stared after them. "What the hell?" the woman known as Kriemhild von Nibelung wondered aloud.

*

"Do you think he will wake if I move him?" Gretel asked. "My leg is going to sleep."

The man known as Siegfried Volsung shook his head. "He's exhausted, poor kid."

Very carefully, Gretel lifted the head of the sleeping boy from her lap and eased herself from under him. She placed a bedroll under his head and lowered him gently down. He moaned in his sleep, but did not wake.

With a sigh of relief, Gretel stood and stretched. She ran her fingers through her long, black hair and yawned. It took an effort of will for Siegfried not to stare at her; Gretel was a stunning woman and well she knew it. She turned her head and caught him looking at her, gave a sly smile and walked around the fire to sit down beside him.

"She's been gone a long time," Siegfried said.

"She could be gone a lot longer," Gretel noted, brushing her knuckles gently against the back of his hand.

Siegfried sprang to his feet and paced impatiently to the far side of the fire, where the boy, Garth, lay sleeping. Despite his exhaustion, the child had been unable to sleep, haunted by the things that he had seen and dogged by his fear for his friend's safety. Only when Gretel had given him a drink brewed from sweet-smelling herbs, laid his head in her lap, gently stroked his temples and sung him a soothing lullaby had he at last fallen into peaceful oblivion.

"Where did you learn all that stuff, anyway?" Siegfried asked.

"Tibet," Gretel replied absentmindedly, watching him intently with her dark eyes until Siegfried began to feel uncomfortable.

"You're a woman of mystery," he told her, frankly.

Gretel winked. "Alluring, isn't it?"

"I'd say worrying," Siegfried admitted. "I don't think either of us ever believed you were just a maid, but there's a hell of a lot you haven't told us, particularly given all we've told you."

"Don't you trust me?" Gretel asked, her eyes widening in an expression of innocent indignation.

"Not entirely," Siegfried admitted.

"Have I missed something?"

Siegfried turned at the voice. "Kriemhild!" he gasped. "I didn't hear you coming."

"Guess you had your mind on other things," Kriemhild suggested as she emerged from the shadows.

Siegfried grinned as he swept her into a hug, fighting off a momentary stab of irrational resentment for the body armour that resisted his embrace. "I was beginning to worry," he chided.

Kriemhild kissed her partner gently. "No need," she assured him. "I'm a big girl, Siegfried. I can take care of myself."

"I prefer it when we're taking care of each other," he told her, responding with a more insistent kiss.

Gretel gave a discreet cough. "Not in front of the children," she suggested, indicating the young boy at their feet.

"Jealous?" Kriemhild asked.

Gretel looked away to hide a flash of anger; whether Kriemhild noticed the reaction or not, she chose not to pursue the matter.

"Have something to eat," Siegfried suggested. He sat by the fire, drawing Kriemhild down beside him and lifting the pot from the fire. "Rabbit stewed with wild garlic and redcurrants."

"The survival gourmet lives," Kriemhild teased. Suddenly, she shuddered.

"A...Kriemhild?" Siegfried asked, a sudden rush of concern almost making him forget to use her cover name. "What is it?"

Kriemhild shook her head. "I have been an assassin for most of my career, but I have never seen death like this before," she admitted. "Did the boy say any more after I left?"

"He talked a little about his friend, Magda," Siegfried replied. "Was there any sign...?"

"She was picked up by troops from the castle," Kriemhild explained. "They seemed to be treating them okay. But the town...It was a massacre, Siegfried, but he was wrong about one thing. The attackers didn't come from the castle."

"Just because they seemed gentle with the survivors..." Gretel began.

"There were _no_ attackers!" Kriemhild snapped. "No-one came to Ingen and killed its people. They killed each other. It looks as though the whole town went crazy and started tearing each other apart. I found cellars where dozens of rats had ripped each other to shreds; cats and dogs who had died at each other's throats."

Gretel's eyes widened in fear. "Dahak?"

Kriemhild nodded. "But the Casket wasn't anywhere in the town and the castle clearly hadn't been affected. The Rage has always been a side-effect of using the tesseract for time travel, but this was...It was as though it were being used as a _weapon_."

"Hideous," Siegfried whispered.

Kriemhild leaned her head against Siegfried's shoulder. "It was horrible. I've seen civilians murdered before, but never this. Never forced to become each other's willing... _eager_ executioners. There was...I found a man who had survived. He'd killed his entire family and, after the rage passed, he'd tried to sit them up at the table for supper. His mind had gone from the horror of it. I..."

Siegfried hugged her tightly. "It was all you could have done," he assured her.

"So the Casket _is_ here," Gretel sighed.

"And Iblis," Kriemhild added.

Gretel swore. "I _knew_ that slippery bastard had escaped Klemper's death," she hissed. "Oh, I should have made sure of him at the Wewelsberg."

"Well, he was she when I saw her," Kriemhild noted. "She was leading a squad of SS troops, in person and in a female body, so I guess she's abandoned all pretence at normal operations."

Gretel frowned. "Why would he do that?" she wondered aloud. "He could just as easily use an officer for command, even if he wanted to slip inside a particular woman in his off-duty hours."

"You know, it's a pity Freud's dead already," Kriemhild noted. "He would've had a field day with Iblis." She fell silent and looked at Siegfried, then at Gretel, then back at Siegfried.

"Is there something else worrying you?" Siegfried asked. "Is it Iblis? You know he can't be the Iblis from our time or we'd pick him up on the monitor. I guess he might recognise us from Klemper, but..."

"No," she replied, quietly. "It's not Iblis. It's someone else. Someone who _is_ from our time. Someone who _definitely_ shouldn't be here."

*

"This will be your suite during your stay at Castle Falkenstein," Frau Zelig told Daniel. "I hope it is to your taste?"

"Quite," Daniel assured her, testing the grille over the window; it seemed very firm. "Most of the places I stay in have bars on the windows," he added, truthfully enough. "What about the girls?"

Zelig shrugged. "They will be well cared for," she assured him. " _They_ are German citizens, while you, Dr Jackson, are an American spy and saboteur. Scharführer Weber will see to it that the children are treated well; his wife is the cook here and he seems to have taken quite a shine to them."

"What about the Frau Doktor?" Daniel asked. "If they are hurt..."

Zelig laughed out loud. "You are in no position to make threats," she assured him. "We shall do whatever we please with the two survivors."

"They're just children!" Daniel insisted.

Zelig laid a hand on his chest and thrust him backwards with alarming strength. She stalked out of the cell and the door slammed closed behind her. After a moment, the Judas window snapped open. "If I find myself in better spirits, I might send you something to eat," Zelig told him. "The Frau Doktor will send for you if she wishes, but if I were you, I would get to like the view."

*

Siegfried stood, staring towards the castle. His body language was closed and he made no response when Kriemhild laid her hand on his shoulder.

"Who is this Daniel Jackson?" Greta asked, casually.

"The Director of the Historical Oversight Board," Siegfried replied. "He was the man ultimately responsible for the policing of the timeline with the intent of ensuring that Marianna Veidt ends up as Imperiatrix Mariana Veidt, Lady President of the American Imperial Commonwealth. Or...he was," he admitted.

"When the rebel, Hammond, stopped the message being sent to the Antarctic base, he changed history," Kriemhild explained. "It _may_ be that this is our Daniel Jackson..."

" _Your_ Daniel Jackson," Siegfried huffed.

"...or it may be that this is a _different_ Jackson. The latter is more likely," she admitted, a catch of pain in her voice.

"Why?" Gretel asked.

"Daniel was a genius," Kriemhild explained. "He understood the structure of history better than anyone and he had a knack for calculating the correct intervention to adjust history with the minimum of collateral change."

"Also, fabulous dress sense and good in bed," Siegfried added, sarcastically.

"Siegfried!" Kriemhild snapped angrily.

Gretel concealed a slight smile.

"He was also a free thinker," Kriemhild added. "One of only a very few who ever achieved office. For some reason, the Imperiatrix had a soft spot for him."

"Oh, we all know which spot that was," Siegfried grumbled.

"That's enough," Kriemhild told him, sternly. "This is not the time. Anyway, whatever _she_ saw in _him_ , he did not entirely reciprocate. Through his study of history, he had come to believe that the Commonwealth was _not_ the blessing it was made out to be. He once told me..." She paused a moment before continuing: "He once told me that he believed that ultimately the entire Commonwealth and all its policies served nothing except Veidt's ambition."

"He was not alone in this suspicion," Siegfried noted. "My Master-at-Arms believed..."

"Charlie?" Kriemhild exclaimed, astonished.

Siegfried blinked. "He...He never told you?" he asked, shocked.

Kriemhild looked as though she had been punched in the face. "No."

"Well...he told me that he questioned the purposes and methods of the Commonwealth. He'd been in the vanguard at the Battle of Cairo. This was in 1983," he told Gretel. "The 3rd Continental Brigade was sent to assist the European Army Group in capturing a dissenter stronghold. Containment was considered, but the Imperiatrix was determined to control Cairo and Giza and that meant capturing the stronghold outright. The battle went on for three days before the dissenters surrendered; the fighting was appalling."

"Only they didn't surrender," Kriemhild noted. "They slaughtered the 109th Bavaria Cavalry Battalion when they were sent in to oversee the submission and detonated their own magazine; took out the entire fortress."

"Not according to the M-at-A," Siegfried corrected. "He explained that after the 109th went in, they reported all dissenters in custody and the city occupied. The rest of the force expected to be brought in to begin dismantling the defences, but instead they were pulled back and a detachment of the Praetorian Guard went in. _That_ was when the shooting started."

"That's crazy," Kriemhild argued.

"It's not an isolated incident," Siegfried admitted. "I...I don't know that I took it seriously at the time, but increasingly I have come to believe that Veidt was always playing to her own rules, with her own agenda that has nothing to do with the stated aims of the Empire. And if Iblis is working with the Nazis then it looks as though Veidt was backing both horses in this race."

"Charlie never said anything," Kriemhild said.

Siegfried went back and crouched at her side. "You know how he was always trying to protect you," he reminded her, touching her arm in a gesture of reconciliation. "He probably didn't want you getting into trouble."

 "And Jackson?" Gretel asked, sharply.

"Despite his doubts, he died protecting Veidt," Siegfried replied, shooting Gretel an angry glance.

"Only he didn't," Kriemhild added. "Or he hasn't. Or...maybe he won't. Damn time travel."

*

In a laboratory in the highest tower of Castle Falkenstein, a group of technicians were making minute adjustments to a complex web of machinery. Cables and crystals hung in a mesh of fine wires and pulsed with a darkness that seemed to swallow up the illumination cast by the electric lights. At the centre of the web hung the grim sarcophagus known as the Dahak Casket.

Frau Zelig entered this chamber and looked around for the woman who supervised this work; her mistress. Standing at Zelig's side, Magda saw this supervisor as she turned towards them and at once she was struck by the realisation that _this_ was what Zelig wanted to be. She might not have been able to say that where the servant was dour, the mistress was magisterial; that where Zelig was elaborately vampish, her mistress had an effortless predatory charisma; that where Zelig was strong, her mistress was powerful; but Magda knew a wannabe as well as any eight year old would.

Magda did not hear the introduction that Zelig made, nor did she hear the command to bow. The Scharführer laid a hand on her shoulder and gave a gentle push. She looked up into his face and he whispered to her, but his lips moved too little for her to make out his words.

Zelig's hand struck Magda around the back of the head, driving her to the floor. She fell hard, scraping her hands and knees on the stone. The mistress stepped forward and intercepted Zelig before she could administer any further punishment. Magda looked up at them in fear as the mistress stood with her back turned for a long moment. When she at last looked around at Magda, it was with an expression of kindness.

The woman crouched down beside Magda and helped her to her feet.

"Hello," she said, speaking slowly and clearly, accentuating the movements of her lips so that Magda could better understand her. "I'm Mariana. What's your name?"

"M-Magda."

Mariana smiled and touched a finger to Magda's chin, lifting her face to the light. "Such a lovely name," she said. "And such a pretty girl."

Magda grinned, utterly charmed.

"And who is this little one?"

"My sister, Lisl," Magda replied.

Mariana looked up at Zelig and frowned. She said something and then turned back to Magda. "Come and sit down in my office, Magda," she invited. "The Scharführer will fetch you some cocoa and we can talk once I've spoken to my aide. After that, you can have a bath if you'd like and we'll get you some nice, clean clothes. Alright?" She brushed her fingers against Magda's cheek.

Magda nodded eagerly. She took the Scharführer's hand and went with him into the stillness of Mariana's office.

"Master..." Zelig began, but Marianna rounded on her in a rage and struck her so hard across the face that she was sent tumbling across the floor.

"You are an idiot, Iblis. Could you not see that the girl was proof against the Dahak pulse because she is _deaf_?"

"Please, My Lord Ahriman; I shall make amends."

Ahriman, the Scourge of Worlds, looked down at her servant through the eyes of the Nazi witch, Dr Marianna Veidt. "Yes, you shall," she declared. "You shall care for those two children as though their lives were more precious than your own; do you understand."

Iblis opened her mouth, and then shut it again. "No, My Lord," she admitted.

Ahriman rolled her eyes. "Then simply obey," she advised.

"Yes, My Lord," Iblis grumbled, sourly.

"Now; were there any other survivors?"

"No, My Lord," Iblis replied, with a sly look. "No survivors, but there was an _intruder_."

"What!" Ahriman's eyes flashed white. "Tell me everything. This could place the entire programme in jeopardy!"

Iblis licked her lips. "He says that his name is _Jackson_ ," she said, "and he has the look of the man who impersonated von Karlstein." She began to say more, but her mistress was already heading for the door. "My Lord?" she called.

"See to the children," Ahriman replied. "Tell them I have gone to correct another of your mistakes. I expect to hear good report of you from Magda."

Iblis scowled and growled: "Yes, My Lord." She turned and struck one of the staring technicians. "Get back to work!" she snapped. "Breathe one word of any of this and I will feed you to the dogs."

*

"One-hundred-ninety-three, one-hundred-ninety-four..."

The Judas window snapped open and the guard's face appeared. "Will you shut up in there!"

"One-hundred-ninety-five..."

"I've told you twenty times already..."

"One-hundred-twenty...Now you've made me lose count!" Daniel protested. "I'll have to go back to the start." He turned his gaze to the brick in the bottom left corner of the wall with the door. "One, two, three..."

"Right. You asked for it. I'm...Agh!" The guard cried out as someone pulled him away from the door. "Ah...I...Oh. Frau Dr Veidt! I was not informed..."

A woman's voice spoke and, after a few moments, the door was unlocked and opened. The woman stood, framed in the doorway. Her hair was somewhere between red and blonde, just a little richer than ginger, and it shone like a halo in the light from the corridor. She was a picture of stylish sophistication in a long, dark leather coat over a white blouse and expensive, brown woollen trousers; kid gloves and high, leather boots. She was very beautiful and had a power about her that reminded Daniel of a big cat.

"Welcome to Castle Falkenstein, Dr Jackson," she purred. "It has been..." She stopped, and then advanced on him.

Daniel rose from his bunk at her approach. It was hard for him to act as though he was not affected by her presence; her charisma was truly awesome.

"How intriguing," she said. She stood very close to him. "My aide appears to have mistaken you for someone else. But you _are_ Dr Jackson?"

"Dr Daniel Jackson," Daniel confirmed. "And who might you be?"

With slow, deliberate movements, tugging one finger at a time, the woman removed her right glove and held out her hand. "I am Dr Mariana Veidt," she said.

Daniel took her fingers and made a small bow in order to kiss them. Mariana left her hand lying gently in his grip for a long moment, then withdrew, raised her knuckles to her face and seemed to inhale his scent. "Fascinating." She smiled, beatifically. "I must apologise for this misunderstanding," she said. "As I explained, my aide mistook you for someone else; a dangerous saboteur, whose name is _also_ Jackson. Please, come with me to the guest suites and I will try to...make things up to you."

"That sounds charming," Daniel replied, but inside he shivered. Beautiful and charismatic she might be, but Daniel sensed a deep coldness in Dr Mariana Veidt; a coldness that was somehow familiar.

*

"So; is this the Daniel from our time or not?" Siegfried asked.

Kriemhild examined her temporal tracking device and, sure enough, there was an additional chronic signature registering now, a temporal potential that was out of phase with her own. "Well, from our _time_ , certainly," she replied, "but maybe not our time _line_. The tesseract connects more than just different times; this could be...He could be from any one of a hundred thousand alternate timelines close enough to ours to create an almost identical Daniel Jackson. What really worries me is that he looked lost."

"Lost?"

"As though he had only just arrived here," Kriemhild explained. "Here...and now. He came through the tesseract and not long ago."

"Not possible," Siegfried argued. "The Casket was sealed and...Where's the recall trigger?" he asked.

Kriemhild opened her pack and took out the slender, silver wand. "You're right, of course; if the tesseract _had_ been unsealed, the automatic detectors would have picked up the increase in parachronic instability and alerted us. That's why I left the automatics on, after all." She held up the device. "Except that _someone_ has switched the automatics off."

"What?" Siegfried snatched the device and stared at it, then turned to glower at Gretel.

Gretel met his gaze with equanimity.

"You shut off the alarms," Siegfried accused.

"Yes," Gretel agreed. "I heard your device give its alarm when the two of you were...preoccupied. I shut it down. I need your assistance. Ahriman is here and I can no longer fight him alone. I knew that you would try to return to your own time if the Casket was opened and so..."

Siegfried shook his head. "I don't think I could go back. I've lost too much faith."

"Well, it's a bust anyway," Kriemhild laughed bitterly, shaking the wand. "Our timeline has either collapsed or shifted too far from this one to make contact. No recall signal, no recall."

"Then you can stay and help me to end the Casket's threat," Gretel said.

"Help _you_?" Kriemhild snarled. "We felt sorry for you, Gretel, and you've been using that, haven't you. You've used _us_. You have lied to us, abused our trust; you're as bad as the Temporal Counterinsurgency Group. You're as bad as Veidt!"

Gretel's hands clenched into fists and she rose halfway to her feet. Kriemhild drew her pistol and held it levelled at Gretel's heart.

"So what do we do?" Siegfried asked.

Kriemhild scowled at Gretel. "Much as I would like to put a hole in your treacherous heart, you know things that _we_ need to know; things you haven't told us yet. I guess now I know why you've played it so close."

"I like to be indispensable," Gretel agreed.

Kriemhild holstered her pistol. "I'm going to talk to Daniel."

Siegfried sprang to his feet. "What?" he demanded.

"He understands time and history; he can tell us what to do."

"Of course," Siegfried huffed. "If Daniel Jackson is around, we wouldn't want to risk _breathing_ without his advice."

"Don't take your insecurities out on me!" Kriemhild snapped.

"Insecurities?" Siegfried demanded. "You're so desperate to see Daniel Jackson again that you're prepared to risk capture or death to hang on his words of wisdom; I don't think I'm jumping to conclusions."

Gretel rose quietly to her feet, walked away from the couple and smiled.

*

Mariana showed Daniel to a richly-appointed guest chamber, with its own bathroom, a four-poster bed and a roaring fire in the hearth. She stood by while a doctor took a sample of Daniel's blood, then poured them both a drink and steered him to a plush couch. She sat close to him and her proximity was almost as intoxicating as the brandy.

"Tell me, how does an American come to be in Bavaria in this time of strife?" Mariana asked.

"Just sightseeing," Daniel replied.

"Indeed?" She slipped a hand into her coat and produced his Berretta. "And do you always go sightseeing with a pistol?"

"Well, these days..." Daniel began.

"And such an interesting weapon," she noted. "Ever so ugly, but rather sophisticated in its manufacture. Where did you come by it?"

"It's...Italian," he replied.

Mariana chuckled as she slipped the pistol back under her coat. "I understood that the Italians had such style." She sipped her drink and slipped a little closer to him. "What is it that you are a doctor of?" she asked.

"Archaeology," he replied. "I once specialised in Egyptology, but I'm more of a generalist these days."

"A student of the past," she noted. "It must be a fascinating topic when so few people _remember_ the past."

"Quite," Daniel replied, his sense of unease gaining resolution. "And you, Mariana?"

"Call me Ana," she insisted, with a coquettish smile that seemed almost out of place on such a potent creature as her.

"Very well, Ana," he agreed, "but won't you tell me? What is your doctorate in?"

She laughed again. "Well, now you have caught me, my sweet. I must confess that it is _pure_ affectation. My qualifications are many and varied, but I do not number such a thing as a doctorate among them; save only an honorary doctorate of history from Munich," she added. "My primary field of study is that of the occult, and few institutions offer degrees in occultism."

Daniel sipped his drink, cautiously. "So are you a...practicing occultist?"

"Oh, yes," she assured him. "I am a witch, a priestess and a scientist; a healer and a soldier. As I said, my qualifications are many. Let me show you something."

Mariana rose to her feet and strode to the bell-chord that hung by the fireplace. She gave a sharp tug, and then walked back to the couch. "You were found in the company of two children; one, Lisl, an infant and the other, Magda, some nine years old."

Daniel's stomach squirmed. "That's right," he said.

"You look as though I had threatened you," Mariana noted. "What terrible deeds can you suspect me of?"

The door opened and Frau Zelig entered, wearing a face like thunder and carrying a large, ornate chest. Magda walked behind her, wearing an over-long silk dress. She carried her sister in her arms, wrapped in a cashmere blanket. Magda looked rather unhappy.

"Hello, Magda," Mariana said.

Magda's face lit up with a smile. "Hello, Mariana. Hello, Daniel."

"Hi," Daniel replied, trying to work out what was wrong with the picture before him.

"They do not look very happy, Anile," Mariana noted. "I hope you have not been mistreating them."

"I have not," Zelig grumbled.

"Never mind. Bring me the casket and then you may wait outside." She turned away from Zelig and busied herself hitching up Magda's skirt. "And I think that you should have this taken in a little," she suggested.

"Yes, My Lord," Zelig grumbled.

A shiver ran along Daniel's spine.

Zelig brought her burden forward and laid it on the table beside the couch. She gave an exaggerated bow, and then left the room. Mariana peeled off her gloves and opened the chest. The chest was lined with dark purple satin and inside, Daniel saw two devices formed of slender gold-and-silver bands and crystals of various sizes. As Mariana slipped her hands into the devices, Daniel's fears crystallised.

"Magda, darling; would you let Daniel hold Lisl for a moment?" Mariana asked.

"Yes, Mariana," Magda agreed.

She walked over and handed Lisl up to Daniel. Reluctantly, he took the infant into his arms. He knew that Mariana wanted him burdened with the baby so that he could not interfere with what was about to happen. He held Lisl close and watched anxiously as Magda crossed to stand in front of Mariana.

Mariana smoothed the sleeves of Magda's dress. "You look _lovely_ in that outfit," she said, with every sign of sincerity. She cupped Magda's face between her hands. "So pretty. You will break so many hearts when you grow."

Magda giggled and pulled away. "Cold," she complained, touching the bands.

"Sorry," Mariana laughed. She breathed on her hands to warm the bands, and then laid her hands on Magda's ears. She leaned over and kissed Magda's forehead. "Hold still, darling," she said.

Light flared under Mariana's hands. Magda cried out and tried to recoil, but Mariana held her still.

"No!" Daniel shouted. In his arms, Lisl began to scream.

He tried to find a safe place to set the infant down, but before he found one, Magda's cries had stopped. The glow died and Magda sagged wearily against Mariana's knees. Lisl screamed again and Magda looked up, fear and surprise in her eyes. It took a moment, but then the implication dawned on Daniel.

"My God," he whispered.

"That is the idea," Mariana agreed. She laid a finger on Magda's chin and turned her towards her. "Magda, my love," she said, and Magda's eyes widened in wonder as she heard her name for the first time. "Take your sister away and calm her. Frau Zelig...No." She lifted her head. "Frau Zelig!"

Zelig entered.

"Take Magda and Lisl to the kitchens. Have Scharführer Weber take care of them. Instruct him to assist Magda in adapting to her newly-recovered hearing." She stroked Magda's face, lovingly. "Take good care of her, Anile. She is very frightened."

"Yes, My Lord," Zelig acknowledged, as sour-faced as always.

"My most faithful servant," Mariana noted, as the door closed, "but so angry just at the moment. I do not know why she blames me; she failed me so terribly and I had no choice but to punish her."

"What do you want with the girl?" Daniel asked.

Mariana smiled. "The girl? Is she not magnificent? She is deaf, and still so young, yet resourceful enough to survive the destruction of her entire village. She will make a fine servant and I shall raise her to a state of absolute loyalty."

"Even if she learns that it was you who destroyed her village?"

"I shall tell her myself," Mariana assured him. "When the time comes; once she looks on me as an all-powerful, all-providing goddess. Of course, if you tell her before that I shall have to kill her and hope that Lisl proves as gifted." She searched his face, curiously.

"No shock? No outrage?"

Daniel shook his head and set his drink aside. "I've long since ceased to be shocked by the actions of the Goa'uld," he assured her.

Mariana laughed delightedly. "I hope that I can find some way to surprise you," she told him.

"You already have," he assured her. "You restored a girl's hearing. I've rarely seen such an act of kindness from a Goa'uld, ulterior motives or not."

"But I am no mere Goa'uld," she assured him. "I am Ahriman."

*

Siegfried and Kriemhild's arguments woke Garth, so Gretel took the boy and walked a short way from the camp.

"Why are they fighting?" Garth asked.

Gretel shrugged. "He is a poet, she is a soldier," she replied. "He wants to do what is right; she wants to do what is practical. She holds him back," she concluded. "Sooner or later, he will see that his future does not lie with her. They will part ways and he will be mine."

"You...love him?" Garth asked.

"No," she replied. "I want him, yes, but more than that, I _need_ him. His skills, his weapons and equipment make him an invaluable ally. You see, my brother is here; if I do not stop him, he will destroy the world."

"The world?" Garth asked, horrified.

Gretel shrugged. "It's what he does. I need Siegfried to help me fight him."

"Why not both of them?"

Gretel chuckled. "She would not take the risk," she replied. "And I _do_ want him. I'll not have him until he is free of her."

They emerged onto a road and Gretel pointed along it. "This will take you to the next village," she said. "When we find your friend Magda, we'll send her after you."

"You don't care about Magda," Garth accused. "Kriemhild does."

"Go," Gretel said, suddenly impatient.

"Are you going to help Magda?"

Gretel's eyes burned white. "Go!"

The boy ran. Gretel remembered, almost nostalgically, the time when that kind of fear would have made her feel good. She sighed, then turned and walked back through the trees towards the camp.

*

Mariana summoned two guards to escort Daniel to the kitchens, where a thin woman with bony elbows and high cheekbones was all-but forcing cookies and cakes on the disoriented Magda. Scharführer Weber, his tunic unbuttoned, was rocking Lisl gently.

"How are you feeling?" Daniel asked Magda, making sure that she could still see his lips move.

"I'm afraid," Magda admitted, "but...she is amazing! Is she a magician? Or a saint?"

"Something like that," Daniel allowed. "It must be a shock to you."

Magda nodded. "What is the...Day hawk pulse?" she asked.

Daniel frowned. "I don't know."

"Mariana said that I was immune to the day hawk pulse because of my deafness," Magda explained. "I do not think that she meant me to see, but I looked back from the door of her office," she admitted.

"Day hawk...Dahak?" Daniel mused.

Magda looked at him, confused.

"Dahak was the storm dragon, forged in flame by the Demiurge, Angra Mainyu, also known as Ahriman. He brought fire and destruction to the entire world until he was imprisoned by the war god Thraetaona."

Magda's eyes bulged. "She has a _dragon_?"

"I suspect it was a code name," Daniel admitted.

 

From a secret passage in the wall, Mariana watched as Daniel played with Magda, speaking to her so that she could match the new sounds to the familiar movements of his lips.

"He's very good," she mused. "I wonder if he has children of his own."

"Should I find out for you?" Zelig asked.

"I doubt you will find any information on _him_ ," Mariana assured her. She ran her tongue over her lips. "He is something quite different."

"If you desire him, My Lord, I would be pleased to possess him for you," Zelig offered.

Mariana gave a low chuckle. "I need no assistance to bed a mere _mortal_ ," she scoffed. "It will take more than that to persuade me to release you from your punishment. No, Iblis, my love, you will just have to spend a little longer as the delectable Frau Anile Zelig."

"But I hate this body!" Iblis whined. "It has been so long since I was able to shift; it's like this flesh is rotting around me!"

Mariana turned on her servant. "Be _quiet_!" she hissed. "And be thankful that I have given you no other punishment."

"My Lord..."

"Fifteen _thousand_ years, Iblis. Fifteen millennia that you have disported yourself on this wretched world, while I lay locked in an ice floe and you _never_ came to find me. In fifteen millennia you should have been able to travel ever inch of this planet and yet it was a group of humans who found me _by accident_. And you complain to me of feeling trapped?" She smiled, coldly. "No, beloved. You must continue to pay for a little while longer now."

"Sometimes, My Lord..."

"You hate me?" Mariana asked, sweetly. "Of course you do, my love. Will you act on that hate?"

"No," Zelig whispered.

Mariana planted a gentle kiss on her servant's forehead. "That is why I rule and you serve, Iblis."

*

"This is _madness_!" Siegfried insisted. "You don't know if he'll even recognise you."

"I have to speak to him," Kriemhild replied. "We're not up to this, Siegfried. We're not trained for decision-making. If I don't do this, we're just going to end up as puppets for that little succubus. She's already got you drooling each time she...bats her eyelids," she muttered. She turned away as she said it, but his hearing had always been good.

"Is that what this is about?" Siegfried demanded. "You think there's something between Gretel and me so you're going to go and...bat your eyelids at Jackson?"

"Jackson and I...That's in the past, Siegfried; you know that."

"Because he was _dead_ ," Siegfried insisted. "We both know that if he had still been alive..."

Kriemhild stared at him. "Do you really think that?" she asked, appalled. "You think that if I hadn't been through everything I went through – Daniel, Iblis; losing Charlie – I would never have noticed you?" She shook her head, appalled. "Don't you know how often I've wished I met you first? That I'd known you when Charlie was training you? That I could have skipped all the pain and the heartache and..." Tears welled up in her eyes. "Damn you, Tom Keeler!" she snarled, lapsing from her use of his codename in her rage.

He could only stare in mute amazement as tears fell from eyes he had long thought dry. In the years he had known her, she had never shed a tear. At last, he swallowed hard to clear the blockage in his throat and croaked out: "What do you need me to do?"

She sniffed. "Stay here," she said. "I can find clothes in Ingen and go in dressed as a maid. Plenty of the officers must have mistresses in Pfronten; I can bluff it if I'm caught, although I'll go over the wall if I can."

"Don't forget your Handshake," he told her.

Kriemhild forced out a chuckle. "Remember who the senior agent in this team is," she cautioned.

"All I know is that I want you to come back," he said. "You're the only thing in the world that means a damn to me and I am _so_ afraid of losing you."

"I'm sure Gretel will look after you," Kriemhild retorted acidly.

"I'm not interested in her," Siegfried assured her.

Kriemhild gave a sceptical snort.

"She's easy on the eyes," he admitted, "but that isn't enough. I love you."

Kriemhild refused to meet his gaze. "How can I believe you when you don't trust me?" she asked.

Siegfried turned away and stooped by his field box. He opened the case and took out a compact pistol. After a moment, he handed it to Kriemhild.

"Heckler and Colt KSP-9," she noted, turning it over in her hand. "Selective fire – single-shot, semi-automatic and full-auto. Good stopping power and an impressive magazine capacity for a weapon of its size. Almost completely silent in single-shot mode...but unreliable in a pinch." She offered it back.

"Charlie gave this one to me when I graduated," he told her. "I've taken it on every mission. I must have fired more than two hundred rounds with it and it's never jammed; never misfired. It's...It's my lucky sidearm," he confessed. "Take it with you," he begged.

"This is yours..." she began.

"Bring it back to me," he told her. "Please. And watch out for yourself."

"Only time I don't is when I have to look out for you," Kriemhild promised. She caught his face between her hands and kissed him, fiercely, passionately. "Don't let her fool you," she whispered. "Gretel. She wants to use you."

Siegfried stroked her face. "I know," he assured her. "I'm not a fool, and I learned from the best."

She smiled, but it was forced. "I'll see you soon," she promised.

*

Magda followed Mariana up a flight of stairs; Mariana cradled the sleeping Lisl in her arms. At the top of the stairs, Mariana opened a door. "This is your room, Magda," she explained.

Magda walked past her and stopped. "It's...beautiful," she breathed.

"As are you and your sister," Mariana laughed. "Come. Get ready for bed."

Mariana bedded Lisl down in her crib while Magda changed into a white, cotton nightdress and washed her face. When the girl was ready, Mariana tucked her in and kissed her brow in benediction. Such gentleness was unfamiliar to Ahriman, but Mariana Veidt had always excelled at being all things to all people.

"I'm afraid," Magda confessed. "When I close my eyes I see..."

Mariana shushed her. "I'll sing to you," she said. "You just listen to my voice until you are asleep; alright?"

"Alright."

So Magda closed her eyes and Ahriman, God of Destruction, sang her the first song she had ever heard. Mariana Veidt had a good voice and Ahriman knew more of music than anyone else on Earth. The song she chose was soft and soothing and the sound washed over Magda's virgin ears like cool water.

Mariana slipped from the room on silent feet, snuffing out the candles as she left and closing the door behind her. She reached for the key, and then thought better of it.

"You trust her that much?" Zelig asked.

"Do not question me," Mariana replied.

"I remember that song," Zelig went on. "Was that not one of your brother's favourites?"

Mariana chuckled. "Did he sing it to you when you wept on his shoulder?" she asked. "You were always so dependent on his support; I honestly thought you might go with him when he ran away."

" _You_ are my Lord."

"I know. You came to tell me something."

Zelig nodded. "Yes," she agreed. "I have completed the blood tests and...Something is wrong with the sample."

"Indeed?" Mariana grinned.

"You...expected this?"

"Perhaps. Tell me what you have found."

 

Left alone in his 'guest quarters', Daniel explored his gilded cage in minute detail. There was nothing useful; anything that might have helped him had been removed. The remaining furniture was either too heavy to lift or too flimsy to make an effective weapon; the drawers of the various chests and desks were empty. He did find a monitoring device behind the mirror – a silvery hemisphere apparently patterned on a Goa'uld long-range visual communicator, but approximated with terrestrial materials – and another concealed in the carvings in the canopy of the bed.

Daniel threw both of the devices out of the window.

The key clicked in the lock and the door opened. Daniel turned as Mariana entered and closed the door behind her. His captor had changed into a flowing, red gown with a low neckline, topped off with a golden fox-fur coat that matched the colour of her hair. She carried a cut-crystal bottle in one hand and a matched pair of silver chalices in the other.

"Alone at last," she said in a silken whisper.

"Ah," Daniel said. He did not have to stretch his imagination far to see where Mariana was heading.

She smiled sweetly. "Come. Sit with me, Dr Jackson. There is much that I would ask you."

Daniel swallowed hard. "I'm only required to give you name, rank and serial number," he told her.

Mariana laughed and patted the cushion at her side. "That is only for enemies, Dr Jackson. I should like to think that we shall be friends."

Filled with trepidation – and not a little anticipation – Daniel sat down next to the Goa'uld.

"You seem nervous."

"Yes," Daniel admitted. "I always get nervous when Goa'uld start being nice to me."

Mariana smiled and poured the wine; it was almost black and just the scent of it made Daniel feel light-headed. "Surely that must happen often?" she said. "One so fascinating must be the recipient of much interest." She pressed a glass into his hand, stroking the inside of his wrist with her fingertips. She raised her own glass and tapped it gently against his. "Cheers."

"Prost," he replied, but he did not drink, even when she sipped delicately at her wine and gave a smile of delectation.

"Mathias and I were very close," she went on.

"What?" Daniel asked, taken aback.

"Mathias Jackson," she explained. "We were, perhaps, as close as two people can be without either knowing the other's given name. It would seem that you are his...grandson? Despite the fact that you appear to be of an age with him."

Daniel shivered. "Well, that would tend to be..."

"Impossible?" Mariana laughed aloud and trailed her fingers along his arm. "Not at all. You see, I have learned that my precious Dahak Casket is not only a weapon of awesome power, it also permits travel between different times. When we met, I could smell the touch of Dahak's power on your skin; I knew then that you were a traveller from a different time. The genetic comparison with Mathias was merely a formality."

"But..." Daniel frowned. "How did you get a genetic sample from my grandfather?"

Mariana leaned her body towards him. "Perhaps it would be better if I _showed_ you?"

Daniel knocked back his wine in one gulp, the alcohol burning his throat on the way down, and made no reply.

*

Kriemhild hung by her fingertips from the upper-edge of a window frame as she worked the catch. It had been a difficult climb, but Executive Action Operatives in the TCG were given extensive and _intensive_ training and she had scaled harder walls than this in her time, usually with far deadlier intent.

 _Thirty-three_ , she thought to herself as the window swung open. _Thirty-three assassinations since_...

Daniel had never approved of assassination as a tool of temporal counterinsurgency and her assignment to the Executive Action Division had created the first strain in their relationship. It might well have ended it altogether, if Daniel's death had not intervened. He had thought that she was pure, still the innocent young historian he had sponsored out of university. She had 'realigned the temporal impact' of five people by the time of his death and, in addition, three more deaths had occurred as unavoidable 'collateral damage'. He must have been so disappointed in her.

It was with great trepidation, therefore, that Kriemhild eased herself through the window and into the room beyond. She paused a moment in the small storeroom to rest her aching arms and flex her bruised fingers.

"Well, that was easy enough," she told herself. "Of course, it's getting out again that's the real trick."

She took the tracer from her pocket and checked its readings. Daniel's chronic signature was above and to the west. At this range she was able to make out that his signature was much stronger and fresher than her own; he was definitely a recent arrival.

Kriemhild secreted the tracer in her blouse and untucked the long skirt from her knickers. Exposed legs were a must for climbing walls, but a dead giveaway if you were supposed to be a demure little serving wench; even one with a sideline in harlotry.

On that thought, Kriemhild checked her reflection in the glass of the window and straightened her hair. Siegfried might think that she made a particularly alluring tousled gamine, but she needed a more deliberate look to pass for an officer's woman. It was fortunate that her dark hair had grown out in the past year, so that it now hung around her shoulders; her former style, a military bob, would not have done at all for this disguise. She rolled her lips in and out a few times, pinched her cheeks to bring the colour to them and made a desultory attempt to arrange what passed for a bosom to maximum effect, then declared her appearance satisfactory; good enough to pass muster, without being striking enough to attract unwanted attention.

She left the storeroom and headed west until she found a staircase and then went up. She found herself in a wide passageway, lined with a thick, red carpet and hung with brightly-coloured tapestries. Suits of armour stood in alcoves and a shield and crossed weapons surmounted the arch at each end. There were three doors, all unguarded, but quite formidable. From the bearing on the monitor, Kriemhild knew that she needed the door on the left.

As she moved cautiously towards the door, however, she was called up short by an angry shout from behind her.

"You, there! What are _you_ doing here?"

*

"Do you think she's alright?" Siegfried wondered.

"I'm sure she is," Gretel replied. "Kriemhild seems to have a particular skill at taking care of herself."

Siegfried stood, staring through the trees towards the castle and Gretel rose to stand behind him. "Come and have something to eat," she said. "Sit by me and talk; you'll do yourself no good just worrying."

She laid a hand on his arm, but he shrugged her off. Gretel did not push the issue and instead went back to the fire. "What really worries me is this new use of the Dahak entity. I suppose that Iblis was put on the track by the work of those idiot Nazis, but for Ahriman to continue that..."

Siegfried turned and looked at her. "Ahriman?"

Gretel sighed. "Iblis' master; the Angel of Chaos. He is here; I can smell him on the wind and feel him in the earth beneath me, but for him to show such a spirit of enquiry...It is not usual."

Siegfried turned and came back to the fire at last. "This Ahriman is like Iblis? A Goa'uld?"

Gretel shook her head. "Ahriman is like nothing else in the universe. He has a gift for destruction, but ordinarily he would simply seek to create a critical mass of conflict around the Dahak Casket. Violence stimulates Dahak and Dahak stimulates violence; the effect grows and spreads until, sooner rather than later, the population of an entire world wipes itself out in a frenzy of mutual-destruction."

"An entire world?" Siegfried pressed.

Gretel gave a weak smile, as though he were dragging from her the information she had always intended to impart. "He _is_ a Goa'uld, which means that he comes from beyond this sphere...as do I. I was not always as you see me and I have lived a long time."

" _You_ are Goa'uld?"

"Of a sort," Gretel admitted. She cast her eyes downwards, but looked up through her eyelashes to gauge his reaction. This would be the test; if he accepted this, he would accept anything.

"Explain," Siegfried demanded.

Inside, Gretel was laughing.

*

Kriemhild turned, slowly. A woman in black slunk towards her with all the sinuous grace of a viper, blonde hair flicking playfully around her shoulders while her grey eyes flashed dangerously. Her face was in the midst of moving from a ferocious scowl to a malicious grin. It would have been clear to anyone that she meant no good to the servant that she had caught in a restricted area, but Kriemhild barely considered that, for she was gripped by a greater fear.

The woman approaching her was _Iblis_.

"You should not be here," Iblis said, circling Kriemhild and watching her with a predator's gaze. "You are in a great deal of trouble, my pretty."

Kriemhild swallowed hard. She knew this mood in Iblis; the shapeshifter was aping her mistress, Mariana Veidt, and seeking to relieve her frustration by putting down another as Veidt derided her. The implications of this were not slow to dawn on Kriemhild: First, that _Veidt_ was here as well as Iblis; second, that Iblis did not recognise her as the Gestapo auxiliary he had arrested at the Wewelsberg a year ago.

"A girl in as much trouble as you needs a friend," Iblis went on, trailing a hand along Kriemhild's shoulders. " _I_ could be that friend; if you can persuade me you want me...to be."

 _Oh, Gods, no,_ Kriemhild thought to herself. _Not again_. She slipped her hand into the lining of her skirt, where she had hidden Siegfried's pistol; better to go down fighting than to fall into Iblis' hands.

Quick as a snake, Iblis caught her hand and twisted Kriemhild into a tight hold. "Oh, no, precious," Iblis crooned. "I don't want your money," she went on, clearly misreading Kriemhild's gesture. She sniffed at Kriemhild's skin and the assassin could not suppress a shudder.

With the thumb of her left hand, Kriemhild triggered the transformation of her Berlin Handshake from harmless ring to deadly blaster. Iblis was behind her and her only certain shot at the shapeshifter would be to fire through her own chest, but she would sooner die than be in Iblis' power, even for a second.

A heartbeat before the weapon's transformation was complete, however, the door towards which Kriemhild had been heading opened and the Imperiatrix Mariana Veidt swept out in a flurry of silk and self-satisfaction.

"Stop playing around, Frau Zelig!" Veidt snapped.

"My Lord," Iblis replied.

"I need to know more about the history of the Casket on this planet," Veidt commanded. "You will come with me. You, girl!"

"Yes, Imperiatrix!" Kriemhild snapped; she could have kicked herself.

Veidt eyed her, darkly. "I like it," she said at last. "Imperiatrix." She rolled the word around her mouth, savouring the taste and the feel of it.

"It...is what your scholars call you," Kriemhild explained. She prayed that Veidt would have scholars now, as she would have in twenty-first century New York, and it seemed that she did, because the blonde mane simply bobbed once in understanding.

"It certainly has a ring to it," Veidt noted.

At the mention of rings, Kriemhild recalled herself and deactivated the Handshake.

"My Lord..." Iblis began, but Veidt raised her hand, sharply.

"Imperiatrix," Veidt corrected. "Girl. See that the prisoner is fed and made comfortable." She handed Kriemhild a key. "Come, my dear Anile."

Iblis cast a resentful glower at Kriemhild before following her mistress. Kriemhild held her breath until they were long gone, and then gave a sigh of pure relief.

"Thank you, lucky sidearm," she whispered.

 

As soon as Mariana was gone, Daniel ran a very hot bath and tried to scrub the scent of her from his skin and the memory of her from his mind. It was not the first time he had slept with a woman he actively disliked for extremely questionable reasons, but that did not make him feel any better about what he had done. He would sooner have suffered a week of torture, but Ahriman was astute enough not to threaten Daniel himself; she had threatened the children.

"The key to controlling Mathias was his friends," she had explained. "You are very like your grandfather."

Daniel laid back in the bath and closed his eyes. A moment later he felt a mouth pressed against his and he struggled for a moment. But this mouth did not have the violence of Mariana Veidt's, nor was the breath that mingled with his a hot blast, heavy with wine. The kiss was passionate, yet gentle, and it carried a delightfully sharp taste of redcurrants with a subtle overtone of wild garlic. Moved, he responded.

The kisser leaned back and smiled a familiar smile. "Hello, Daniel," Kriemhild said.

Daniel stared at her in amazement and made a futile and belated bid to preserve his modesty with the aid of a small flannel.

"Amy?" he gasped.

*

"Tell me about the Fowler," Mariana directed, settling herself at her desk.

Zelig sat on a low stool at her mistress' feet. "I have told you all..."

"Tell me again," Mariana said. "I know what I am looking for now and would hear the tale with fresh ears."

"In the year 936 I sensed the opening..."

Mariana held up a hand for silence.

"My...Imperiatrix?"

"Begin at the beginning, my sweet," Mariana chided. "Tell me why you were seeking the Casket in the first place."

Zelig pouted, but began again: "When I came through the Chappa'ai and found that you were not with me, Imperiatrix, I feared for your safety. My heart was torn that you might be lost and in my distraction I was surprised by a group of the very rebels that we had been sent to destroy. They imprisoned me and, in their arrogance, sentenced me to death; of course I was not so easy to kill."

"Of course."

"I was able to escape in the body of my would-be executioner, but by that time the Chappa'ai had been buried and the Casket was gone. I spent millennia tracking it, hoping that in finding it I would find _you_."

Mariana chuckled, coldly.

"At last, in the year 936, I sensed the opening of the Casket and I hastened to it. I never knew how Graf Jürgen von Krall, a Saxon robber baron of small ambition and petty imagination, was able to release the shields surrounding the Dahak entity, but by doing so he transformed his mean collection of bandit thugs into a force of terrible, monstrous beings who ravaged the lands around his castle.

"The German King, Heinrich der Vogler, led his knights against Graf von Krall and stormed the castle. I arrived not long after, in the body of a ripe, seductive Babylonian maiden with..."

"Spare me the commentary on your own radiance, dear heart," Mariana said.

"Imperiatrix. I arrived not long after the battle had finished. Heinrich had brought dozens of knights, but von Krall's brigands had the power of Dahak in their bodies; there was but a single survivor."

Mariana leaned forward in anticipation.

"Heinrich was as naked as a babe in arms, his skin was caked in ash and his hair had burned away. He stood by the Casket and I moved to slay him and..."

Mariana gave a sharp laugh. "I know you too well for that, my darling. If you, in a woman's flesh, beheld a naked man before the open Casket, you would not have the self-control to strike him down."

Zelig flushed red. "As you say, Imperiatrix," she mumbled. "He stood with his hands plunged into the heart of the entity, with its power coursing through him. I knew at once that I must have him and..."

"His hands were _in_ the Casket?" Mariana asked.

"Within the dark heart of Dahak himself," Zelig confirmed.

"And no harm came to him?"

"None, Imperiatrix. Indeed, he wielded the power of Dahak as though it were his own."

"Yet others were still blasted to ash if they breached the shields?" Mariana pressed.

"Absolutely."

Mariana's face creased into a broad smile. "Excellent."

"Imperiatrix?"

"My darling Iblis; in Dr Daniel Jackson you may have brought me the key to harnessing the Dahak energies."

_*_

"I like your hair!" Daniel said, as he emerged from the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

Amy Kawalsky blushed and ran a hand through her tangled locks. "I'm sorry," she said. "I promised myself I wouldn't do anything stupid and..." she shrugged, disconsolately.

"So...how does this work?" Daniel asked. "You're from the same time as me, but an alternate universe?"

Amy nodded. "It all comes down to Dahak," she explained. "The energies contained within the Casket form a temporal and dimensional nexus, effectively uniting all of space and time across all conceivable parallel timelines. Used correctly, it can send you through time to any spatiotemporal location in which the tesseract is exposed by the opening of the shields, but it also causes reality to fragment and realign, reinforcing the bridges between some tracks and creating dominant and subordinate timelines.

"From when I left," she went on, "there are two primary tracks, separated by the actions of your girlfriend..."

"She is _not_ my girlfriend."

"What?" Amy teased. "You mean you're just easy?"

"Sure," Daniel replied harshly. "Hold a gun to an eight-year-old's head and I'm anyone's."

Amy looked away. "Sorry," she said. "But..."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Daniel sighed. "So in your time...?"

"You were always her favourite," Amy conceded. "Mine too; before...you died." She sighed, softly. "Anyway; the dominant lines were my own reality – in which Veidt comes to America and founds the American Empire, with herself as Imperiatrix – and Veidt-in-Germany – where she becomes Supreme Reichsführerin after the death of Hitler."

"And what if she _doesn't_ attain power?" Daniel asked.

Amy chuckled, and then stared. "You're serious?" she asked.

"Perfectly." Now it was his turn to sigh. "Looks like my reality has become an outside bet."

"Better than mine," she assured him. "Veidt-in-America is kaput, or at least utterly removed from this reality."

"I'm sorry," Daniel told her, sincerely. "I suppose I knew it already," he added. "After all, this place shouldn't even exist."

"Falkenstein?" Amy asked.

Daniel nodded.

"Iblis built it; modelled it on some castle he'd seen centuries before and tried to get governments to come here. He had the whole place rigged for observation, of course, but no government was foolish enough to trust him. It doesn't necessarily mean there is no hope of your future," she added.

"In my future, no-one ever rebuilt the castle," Daniel insisted.

"But that was before Dahak," Amy replied. "As well as shifting timelines, Dahak can merge them, twist them together. People and places slide from one to the other." She sat down on the couch and looked up at him. "So...Tell me about her," she asked.

"About Veidt?"

She shook her head. "About Amy. Your Amy, I mean. Are you happy together?"

"Are we...? No," he assured her, startled. "We're not...She's like a sister to me."

Amy gave a soft chuckle. "I have brothers," she assured him. "They don't kiss me like that."

"I didn't know..." Daniel began to protest, but he knew that his face must have turned bright red by now. He sighed again.

"Tell me about her," Amy said again.

"Amy is..." Daniel thought for a long moment. "Amy is beautiful, intelligent, compassionate, and vivacious. She is one of the most capable young officers I have worked with and a brilliant anthropologist as well. And she has a smile that makes the worst day seem a little better."

"She sounds wonderful," Amy noted. "So...why only a 'sister', if you think so much of her?"

"Amy invests too much in other people," Daniel replied. "Maybe it comes from having so many older brothers, but she thinks of herself as a helper; an auxiliary. The thought that she herself might matter is always rather slow in coming to her and she gives and gives until there's nothing left inside her, but she refuses to take unless you force her.

"She's pinned all her hopes on me, you see," he explained. "Or too many of them, anyway. She is in love with me; passionately in love. I love her, I really do, but I'm not _in_ love; not the way she is. So you're right; I _don't_ look at her and see a sister, but if I ever gave in to that temptation and..." He broke off, blushing once more. "I'm sure I could make myself very happy with an attractive, athletic brunette, but I couldn't make _her_ happy. Not really. She'd come to see that I didn't love her the way she loves me and before too long it would break her heart.

"I care for her too much to ever do that."

Amy cast her eyes to the floor and became very still and quiet.

"Amy?" Daniel asked.

" _I_ had an affair with my Daniel. I loved him with all my heart and he...Well, he was Veidt's favourite; I was always second in his life, especially after I left the Analytical Corps for the Executive Action Division. But it was all about her, really. He used to speak against her rule, but he never refused her summons and in the end he chose to die for her instead of living for me."

Daniel winced, feeling a measure of guilt for his alternate's actions.

"After he died, I rebounded into the worst possible person."

"Veidt?"

Amy guffawed. "You wish." Her face became serious again. "But it was worse than that," she assured him. "It was Iblis. The shapeshifter."

"The what?" Daniel asked.

Amy sighed. "Shapeshifter. Alright; you know that a Goa'uld can leave a host while the host still lives, or abandon a dying host to seek another, but only at great expense to themselves?"

"In theory, yes," Daniel agreed. "I've not really experienced it in practice."

"Well, for Iblis, it is easy," Amy explained. "He changes hosts as easily as changing a dress. And for two years, I was his favourite dress," she added.

"No!" Daniel gasped, appalled.

Amy nodded, swallowing hard to choke back the fit of tears and trembling that threatened to take her at the thought of her time as Iblis' favourite. "He used and humiliated me in every way he could conceive, grinding me down into despair. He took me away from fieldwork to be his servant, his skin and his whipping girl. I was his for two years and I knew that when he tired of me – as he always tired of any...diversion – I would die. I had lost you and so many of my brothers. What little dignity and will to live I retained, _he_ took from me; the few friends I still had, he drove away.

"Until I met Tom."

"Tom?" Daniel asked.

"You don't know Tom Keeler?" she asked.

Daniel shook his head.

"Do I? Does...she?"

Daniel shrugged.

"Poor cow," Amy sighed. "I first met Tom at one of Veidt's masquerade parties; he'd just been awarded the Executive Star for conspicuous gallantry and heroism in the course of temporal field activities, so everyone was talking about him. As soon as we saw him, Iblis wanted him and I...I wanted him _for myself_. For the first time in two years I wanted to have something that I didn't need to share with Iblis. Of course, that meant that Iblis _had_ to take him first."

"What happened?"

Amy giggled. "Iblis propositioned him. Tom stared at us – at me – for a long, long time. I tried to smile at him, even though I knew that my lips were already smiling at him, I wanted him to see _my_ smile instead of Iblis'; that smile you seem so fond of," she noted. "I wanted him to see me instead of just my body and I wanted, for the first time in so long, to just _be myself_."

"It doesn't seem like much to ask," Daniel said in a voice filled with understanding. He knew what it was like to have your will rent away from you and he prayed that the Amy he knew would never share that knowledge. "So what happened?"

Amy laughed again. "He _refused_ Iblis," she said. " _No-one_ had ever dared to do that before, but of course Iblis wasn't Veidt, so she couldn't just order him executed, and she couldn't go running to Veidt and admitting her weakness. So she made a cruel joke of it and pretended she hadn't wanted Tom in the first place. No-one was fooled," she added with a smile, "and if I'd wanted him before, I knew now that I _had_ to have him.

"A week later, when Iblis was about some other business in some other body, I applied to transfer to back to the Executive Action Group at my old rank and called in one of Iblis' markers to rush the application through. By the time Iblis got home, I was gone."

"Sneaky. Didn't he have you transferred back?" Daniel asked.

Amy shook her head. "If you can outfox a Goa'uld, you'd better watch your back forever, but they _never_ admit they were wrong. He's tried to kill me several times since then, but he couldn't reverse the transfer."

"And Tom?"

"I was a Commandant in the Exec, which gave me the right to choose my partner; I chose him. I guess he didn't recognise me from the party, because we hit it off straight away. I thought that I loved him from the moment he turned Iblis down and once I got to know him, I was sure. He became my reason for living," she said. "Now he thinks I want to leave him for you and he's probably out there trying to get his leg over some blonde bit we picked up at the Wewelsberg."

"It sounds unlikely," Daniel assured her. "Have a little faith."

She gave a bitter laugh. "That's what I told him, but there I was, kissing you as soon as we met. So," she added, setting off at a tangent, "you want to get out of here?"

"Not right now," Daniel replied. "I can't leave without the children."

"Your children?" Amy asked, taken aback.

"No. Two girls from the village."

Amy nodded. "Magda and Lisl."

"How did you...? Garth," he realised.

"That's right," Amy agreed. "But they're nothing special to you, are they?"

Now it was Daniel's turn to look shocked. "I guess you're not so much like my Amy, after all," he noted.

Amy was crestfallen. "You're disappointed, aren't you?" she asked. "Just like he was when I joined the EAD."

"I'm not..." Daniel stopped. "She wouldn't have to ask if they mattered," he finished. "It would be enough that they're innocents."

Amy gave a soft laugh. "Well, there it is," she said. "I don't believe in that any more."

"In protecting the innocent?" Daniel asked, appalled.

Amy shook her head. "I just don't believe that anyone is innocent."

 

It was a pensive Daniel who lay in bed that night when Veidt slipped in beside him. He tried not to react to her presence, but although he could keep his hands still, he could not stop the hair standing on end where her breath touched his neck, nor prevent his skin from flushing when she kissed it.

"Why?" he asked.

"My sweet?"

"Why bother seducing me?" he demanded. "I'm your prisoner and you have two hostages to my behaviour."

She pulled herself hard against his back and he felt, rather than heard, her near-silent chuckle. "Seduction is its own reward, my darling," she purred. "But I am strongly drawn to you, as I was to Mathias. With him, I put it down to my long incarceration; I thought that my desire overwhelmed me simply because I longed to be touched after so many centuries trapped in the ice."

"Ice?"

Mariana gripped his shoulder and turned him over to face her. "How strange that you do not know," she said, but she did not attempt to elucidate. "But I was wrong," she went on, as though he had not interrupted. "My desire for you is as strong, if not stronger, than that I felt for him. I suppose it must be a weakness of my host," she mused, "and you _are_ a very attractive family."

"You're too kind."

Mariana slid her hand across his torso. "Not so strong as Mathias," she mused, "but even greater courage and _such_ passion, even when fuelled by hate."

"You're too kind."

Mariana leaned down and kissed him, hard. She clung to him with inhuman strength and pressed every inch of herself against him. "I have had you and my ego is sated," she whispered, her voice no more than a rumble in the depths of her throat. "If you wish, I shall have done with you and return you to your cell. The children shall not be harmed." She kissed him again. "Just say the word," she invited, but he could not force it from his throat.

*

The scene in the woodland camp was quite different. Siegfried – Tom Keeler to his friends – had been woken by Gretel's caresses and emerged from sleep into a fog of desire, but he had still mustered his wits in good time to thrust her away from him and scramble to his feet.

"Siegfried, darling," Gretel called, teasingly. She rose and moved towards him, but he drew a pistol – a period Luger 9mm – and levelled it at her heart.

"Is there any need for that?" she asked.

"I don't trust women who try to seduce me," he told her. "I never have done."

"What about Kriemhild?" Gretel asked, spitefully. "She doesn't seem the sort to be pursued."

Tom laughed at her. "You know nothing about her," he spat.

"I know that she has cowed and controlled you. She has a hard mind and has bent you to her will."

Tom gave a sharp laugh. "As you would bend me to yours?" he asked.

"Siegfried..."

"Let me tell you something about this hard-minded woman you seem to have measured so well," Tom interrupted. "The first time I met her was at a masquerade party. She was dressed as the Queen of Hell – a popular costume for such functions at court; all red leather and bare skin."

"She sounds a paragon," Gretel drawled.

"She wore that costume because she herself was worn by the shapeshifter, Iblis."

Gretel hissed sharply through her teeth. "Iblis?" she asked. "She was the host of Iblis?"

"Yes," he replied. "She was Iblis that night and she tried to seduce me. She did everything she could to make me want her and _still_ I rejected her."

"You must be very strong," Gretel said, earnestly. "He can be quite persuasive when he wants something...or someone."

"I was very _afraid_ ," Tom replied. "I was taken from my parents very young and my foster mother...She was a wicked woman and I never truly recovered from what she did to me," he admitted. "But when Iblis tried to seduce me, something strange happened. I found myself responding; I found myself falling in love."

"With Iblis!" Gretel exclaimed.

Tom shook his head. "With her host. With the woman that she was forcing to act like a whore to flatter her need to control and degrade. For all Iblis' corruption, I thought that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen."

"She is cold, Siegfried," Gretel told him. "How can someone so warm as you are love someone so hard?"

"Because she is _not_ hard and she is not cold!" he insisted. "Nor am I as warm as you might think; not without her here to fire my heart.

"When I met her again, free from Iblis' influence, I saw that she _could_ be ruthless when it was needed, but she could also be funny, sensitive and compassionate. More than that, I knew that she knew what it was to have a trust betrayed and defiled, just as I did and I saw that she hid her heart for fear of being hurt again. I saw all of her strength, as well as her frailty, and I adored the woman even more than the ideal."

He stopped. He had grown so passionate in his defence of his lover that he was breathing hard. "She is the love of my life and she always has been. Always will be."

"You never said."

Tom turned towards Amy's voice and saw her standing in the shadow of the trees. In the dull, red flicker of the dying campfire, tears glistened in her eyes.

"Kriemhild," he said. He started towards her, but she ran to him and wrapped him in her arms.

"Oh, Tom," she sighed. "You never said anything like this."

"I hoped I didn't need to, Amy," he murmured.

Gretel watched and saw the two assassins laid bare for the first time. At last she understood them. She saw their strength, their love, their honour and their pride and she knew what she must do to win their support.

"I am sorry," she said, when at last they noticed her again. "I have wronged you. In the morning, I will tell you everything."

*

Mariana lay curled around Daniel in the hazy aftermath of passion.

"Send me back to my cell," Daniel said in a voice filled with self-loathing.

"No, my darling," she replied. "That opportunity has passed you by. You were _much_ too good for me to let go."

Daniel groaned dejectedly.

Mariana kissed the back of his neck. "Sleep well," she murmured.

He did not.

*

The next morning, Mariana rose early and insisted that Daniel do the same. Secure in her dominance, she became gracious and almost playful, teasing him coquettishly over breakfast. Only one thing seemed to spoil her mood and that was the maid who brought the breakfast itself; it seemed that Mariana had expected another.

Once they had eaten – or rather, once Mariana had eaten, for she did not seem to care whether Daniel had finished or not – she led her conquest to her inner sanctum; to the tower room where the Dahak Casket hung in its web of wire and crystal. A new attachment now stood in the middle of the room; what looked like a primitive electric chair. A large communication sphere hung in front of the chair.

"That's not a promising sight," Daniel noted.

"Have no fear, my darling boy," Mariana assured him. "You are of great value to me, Daniel. You will be the key to achieving the conquest of this planet and not merely its destruction."

"Oh...goody."

"Sit," she commanded.

 "Why?"

"Because I told you to, my lamb," she explained, "and because if you do not, I shall punish one of the children."

"Oh yes," Daniel recalled. "That was it." Reluctantly, he sat and allowed Mariana to strap him to the chair. "Of course, I'm sure some people would pay good money for this," he noted.

"I'm sure they would," Mariana agreed, kissing him once more. She turned to her technicians and her voice took on its Goa'uld timbre. "Open the Casket," she ordered.

"Oh, boy," Daniel sighed.

"As you may know," Mariana explained, "the Dahak Casket is a prison, containing the most fearsome and destructive beast that the universe has ever known. If unleashed it would span all of eternity and, in a matter of moments, consume it; the Casket contains it and allows its power to be, to a certain degree, manipulated. The power of Dahak can shatter worlds; the difficulty lies in the fine control of that power.

"You, of course, are living proof that the Dahak entity can also be used as a medium of _time travel_. What my beloved Iblis discovered, without even realising it, was that there is a small group of people who can focus the direct flow of the Dahak energies. Most people, on contact with the Dahak entity itself, are instantly destroyed, but one man has proven immune to this destructive effect: Heinrich der Vogler. Do you know why?"

"Good dental health?" Daniel asked facetiously.

"Iblis mentioned that Heinrich was naked when she found him, his clothes and hair burned from his body, yet somehow he reclaimed his armour. How?"

"I don't know," Daniel admitted.

"Because he was _not_ Heinrich. He was a stranger in that time and place; a traveller in time, albeit one who bore a marked resemblance to the king. Whatever happened to the traveller's clothes, he later took the armour from the body of the true Heinrich. The traveller had enough wit to use my dear Iblis to his own ends, but more importantly he had the power to manipulate the Dahak energies because he had travelled through time. This shielded him; as it will shield you."

Daniel felt a trickle of sweat run down his brow. "I take it this theory hasn't had many tests?" he asked.

"None at all; until now," Mariana replied. "I do hope that you will not be harmed."

"Your concern is truly touching."

"I have spent months perfecting the Dahak pulse emitter to deliver the Dahak energies to a selected area. With you in place to act as a focusing device, the last flaws will be dealt with and my weapon will be ready to unleash upon the world."

"And what makes you think I'll help you?" Daniel asked.

"Simple sense," Mariana assured him. "You help me, or I start killing people that you care about. Of course, one of the delightful things about you Jacksons is that you seem to care about almost _everyone_."

She turned away from him and threw a huge and unnecessarily ostentatious switch.

"I don't feel anything," Daniel told her.

"Of course not. The power is building now. Sit tight, my lamb, and think _unhappy_ thoughts."

Sensing that her mistress was done with Jackson for the time being, Frau Zelig, who had been waiting impatiently since dawn, approached. "If this man is the key you believe him to be..." she began, but Veidt cut her off with a powerful slap across the face.

"Never seek to press me to a bargain, Iblis," she cautioned. " _If_ he is the key, you shall have gone some way towards proving yourself. However, as you were tawdry enough to try and bind me into a compact, I shall _not_ deem you absolved and I will not permit you to take fresh hosts merely for performing such an...accidental service."

Zelig pouted.

"On the other hand..."

Zelig looked up, her face lit with hope.

"Your girl from last night; who is she?"

"Just one of the servants," Zelig replied. "No-one special. Why?"

"She smells of the forest," Veidt replied, "and she spent a great deal of time in my pet's chamber without bringing him any food. Moreover, although I ordered her to attend to his needs, another girl came to us this morning. I am suspicious of this girl," she concluded.

"You wish her brought to you?" Zelig asked.

Veidt shrugged. "Only find her," she commanded. "If you succeed in this, you may take her as your own and so extract any information that she possesses. Afterwards, you may use her body as well as Frau Zelig's, if you wish it."

Zelig knelt at the feet of her mistress and kissed Veidt's hand. She remembered the girl and her trim, athlete's figure; she might evoke less desire than Frau Zelig, but she had strength. She would be most enjoyable to possess. "Thank you, Imperiatrix," she said.

"And find out where she got that appellation from," Veidt added. "It really does appeal to me."

*

"Once upon a time, there were two brothers, alike in infamy," Gretel explained.

Amy and Tom – who had opted to discard their less-than discreet pseudonyms – listened intently. Occasionally, Tom would stir the porridge in its pot, but otherwise they were still and attentive.

"The elder brother was named Ormazdh. He was a great warrior and conqueror, bold and fearless, with a passion for bloodshed and a desire to rule over all living things. The younger was named Ahriman, and he was a sly one. He delighted in subtle weapons and poisoned words. His great delight was in death and suffering and he desired no dominion; only that all should fall before him. Ahriman's weapons were many, but the greatest among them was the Dahak Casket, with which he brought whole worlds to ruin. He loved the Casket, for by its power these worlds would destroy themselves.

"The two brothers were Goa'uld, and together they served the Supreme System Lord Sokar; one as warlord and the other as assassin. Ormazdh led great armies, but Ahriman had but one servant; Iblis, the shapeshifter, a wild thing, half-mad and consumed by a terrible need for comfort. He was cruel and capricious, but merely a shadow of his terrible master and at times he could be a gentle and loving as a kitten.

Gretel sighed, gently, eyes half-closed in nostalgic remembrance. "But then things changed. Ormazdh sought to take a priestess as his concubine and she fought back; she stabbed him, achieving with a single knife what whole armies could not.

"As death came for him, Ormazdh tried to escape by passing to the priestess' body, but she turned the knife on herself. This blow was not so well-struck and Ormazdh was able to heal the priestess, but the effort was almost too much for him and his mind became fused with hers. Her will was strong, her principles were high and Ormazdh could not overcome her. He lay many weeks in a stupor and when he woke it was as a changed being.

"From the terror of the galaxy, Ormazdh became a protector of the weak; all life was his concern and he rejected both his master and his brother. He fled the palace of Sokar and went into hiding. Of course, Sokar searched for him as he had never sought for a fugitive before; Ormazdh had been high in his counsel and none knew his armies and their weaknesses better. But by this same token, Ormazdh was able to elude his former Lord and begin a campaign of destruction against him."

"Ormazdh was _so_ successful that Lord Sokar's position grew weaker. He remained the strongest of the System Lords, but his position was no longer supreme. His rivals began to harry him at the borders of his domain and the strongest of them, Lord Ra, became a real threat to Sokar's power. This, Lord Sokar could not allow and he dispatched Ahriman to destroy Ra's stronghold; Earth."

"Earth?" Tom asked, incredulous. "Wait. You're talking about ancient mythological figures," he realised. "Ormazdh and Ahriman; Sokar and Ra. Are you telling me that all of these were really aliens in disguise?"

"It is true," Amy told him. "Some of this I learned from Iblis' mind, long ago."

"It's...incredible," Tom replied. "But that would mean that all we have ever achieved..."

Amy squeezed his hand, tightly. "It's not so black," she promised him. "Go on, Gretel; we shall consider the implications of this later."

Gretel nodded. "Ormazdh learned of Ahriman's mission and set out to prevent this. Earth was – and to the best of my knowledge, still is – the single largest centre of human population in the galaxy. Ormazdh understood that sacrifices must be made for the overthrow of Sokar and the other System Lords, but the annihilation of this world was a far greater price than he was willing to pay. Knowing that Ahriman would strike using the Dahak Casket, he set out at once to infiltrate Earth and sabotage the attack."

"Clearly, he succeeded," Amy noted.

"Not in the slightest," Gretel replied. "Ahriman and the bulk of his personal guard were lost in a freak accident which cut off power to the Chappa'ai; the device used to travel between worlds. Ra slaughtered the surviving guards, captured Iblis and seized the Dahak Casket for himself. He could not use the device, but had it sealed away where he thought it would never be found. I...I mean Ormazdh..." Gretel blushed.

"Now you've gone and spoiled the ending," Tom chided.

*

Frau Zelig left her regular SS detachment at Castle Falkenstein and brought out instead a team of Mariana Veidt's Special Commandos, men doped with minute quantities of the Dahak energies until they became a pale parody of Heinrich's élite. They were gaunt, silent men and the two hounds that tugged at their leads were equally lean and sinister. Their eyes burned like coals and Zelig knew that if she showed them fear for one moment they would turn on her. Hell hounds, she called them, for so Ormazdh had dubbed them, long ago.

They walked around the perimeter wall until the hounds began to strain at their leashes. The girl had carelessly left a strong scent on one of the couches and they had already traced it to a window in a storeroom. That window was now six floors above their heads and the hounds were on the trail again.

"Impressive climb," one of the Commandos noted.

Zelig sniffed, dismissively, but she could not help agreeing. She gave a slight smile at the thought of controlling a body with that degree of strength and physical training.

"On," she ordered. "Keep the hounds on their leads until I give the word."

In eerie synchronicity, the four soldiers replied: "Yes, Mistress."

*

"Are you ready?" Mariana asked. She mopped Daniel's brow, solicitously.

"No," Daniel replied.

"Never mind." Mariana laid a gentle kiss on his brow, and then closed a circuit.

Suddenly, Daniel's mind was filled with a red haze of fury. His hands clenched into fists and his teeth gritted; Mariana's smiling face enraged him and he thrashed against the straps as he fought to put his hands around her throat.

"Calm down, my darling," Mariana urged. "You'll only hurt yourself. The anger will pass when I channel the energy away," she assured him.

"Kill you!" Daniel gasped, almost too angry even to speak. His breathing was heavy and ragged; his mouth began to froth.

"Of course." Mariana turned away and checked the dials on her machine. "Good, good. The flow of energy is almost twice as efficient as it was without your inclusion in the circuit. You should be proud."

Daniel roared in incoherent fury.

Mariana touched a control. The surface of the sphere cleared and the image of a small, neat parlour appeared. A young man in SS uniform and a slender blonde in a silvery nightdress sat at their breakfast, served by a pretty, dark-haired maid.

"Hauptsturmführer Reinhardt von Lieberman," Mariana explained, "his domestic, Lara, and his mistress...whatever this one is called."

Mariana approached Daniel and pressed a memory implant to his temple; Daniel barely noticed the sharp pain, but he snapped uselessly at her fingers with his teeth. She stepped back and attached a matching device to her own temple. Her brow creased in concentration and he found his disordered mind being bombarded with images of the Hauptsturmführer.

"Now," Mariana said. "When I switch in the projector, you will focus on von Lieberman and – with any good fortune – he and he alone will be overcome by the Dahak wave. If my theory is incorrect, the town of Pfronten will suffer the same fate as Ingen, but no great loss." She turned to her technicians. "Target the town and stand by."

On the highest turret of the castle, a reflector dish rotated on its turntable and tilted down towards the town of Pfronten.

Mariana moved to her control panel. "Focus on von Lieberman, Daniel," she called. "Focus." She threw the main switch and the power began to flow out of Daniel in a torrent. The unnatural rage left him, leaving his mind crystal clear as a scene of horror unfolded in the monitor before him.

 

"More coffee, sir?" Lara asked, politely.

"Thank you, Lara," von Lieberman replied, with a smile.

"Don't flirt with the girl!" Elise Braun snapped.

Lara snapped a concerned glance towards Elise. She had not been von Lieberman's mistress for long and still assumed that he had some kind of attachment to her. In fact, he was far more likely to dismiss Elise than Lara; Lara would have felt sorry for Elise if she had been less abrasive.

"More coffee, Miss?" she asked, with cool politeness.

"Yes!" Elise snapped, angry at her swain's refusal to respond to her demands. She thrust her cup at Lara.

Lara poured, letting the hot coffee splash over Elise's hand.

Elise screamed out loud and flung the cup aside. "You clumsy chit! Reinhardt! I insist you dismiss this girl immediately."

"Calm down, dear," von Lieberman said.

"Calm down? This clumsy slattern has spilled coffee on my hand! I demand you do something!"

For a long moment, von Lieberman sat, as though lost in thought.

"Reinhardt!"

Without a moment's hesitation, von Lieberman flung his own coffee cup, striking Elise in the face. Then he leaped to his feet and flung himself on Lara, his hands grappling at her throat.

 

Veidt's face was almost demonic in the light of the monitor. "Yes," she breathed. "Perfect."

*

"Yes," Gretel admitted. "I am now Ormazdh. Ever since I blended with the priestess, Ahla, my Goa'uld mind has been...damaged. Most of who I am now comes from my host; only memory and my desire to stop Ahriman survive.

"I, Gretel, was Iblis' servant, host and lover," she added. "I hope that you will understand that this made it hard for me to see any other way to win over an ally than by deceit and seduction."

Tom looked sceptical, but Amy nodded in understanding. "Go on," she said.

"What I do not understand is this new bent for research," Gretel admitted. "Ahriman has never sought anything but destruction; understanding and sophistication are not his way. I fear that he – or rather, she; an unusual choice of host for Ahriman – is planning some new atrocity. If we can not stop her..."

"Listen!" Tom snapped.

Silence fell over the campsite; a silence broken only by the distant yelp of hounds.

"Oh...bugger," Amy muttered. "I guess I wasn't as sneaky as I thought."

Gretel listened intently. "Hell hounds," she muttered.

Amy felt a nervous twist in her stomach. "What?"

"There's a certain note to the voices of those under the Dahak influence," Gretel explained, "be they men, women or beast. They would not be released for anyone but us, I think."

"Pepper bomb and ionisers," Amy said.

Tom nodded and moved to his case.

"I will do what I can to lead them away," Gretel added. "Where are your peasant clothes?"

"We can lose them," Amy insisted.

"If so, we shall meet later," Gretel replied, "but I can not risk your capture. You know better than anyone that, however strong you are, Iblis would rip the secrets from your head in moments; he can not do that to me."

"She's right," Tom agreed. "Besides, we only have two ionisers."

"Ionisers?" Gretel asked.

Tom passed Amy a small, silver device that she clipped to her belt. "Creates an ionised layer which holds skin cells and sweat particles in. This prevents you leaving a scent trail, although you do end up feeling pretty funky."

Tom clipped on his own ioniser, and then planted a small object in the centre of the camp.

"A grenade?" Gretel asked.

"We call it a pepper bomb," Tom replied. "In five minutes it will fill this campsite with a chemical cocktail of chilli oil, garlic and aniseed. It's a good dog that can track anyone through that."

"We'll meet you at the hut where we stayed two nights ago," Amy told Gretel. "If you haven't shown by sunrise tomorrow, we'll assume you're not coming."

"Same here," Gretel agreed.

"If we lose contact, don't worry," Amy finished. "We'll stop her."

Gretel bowed her head in shame. "Thank you," she whispered.

Amy touched her chin and lifted Gretel's gaze to meet her own. "Don't let him ruin you forever," she said. "Have a little faith."

Gretel nodded. "I'll see you tonight," she said, with more confidence than she felt.

Amy picked up two MP40s and passed one to Tom, the two of them moving with the kind of instinctive coordination that could only come with long familiarity. "Good luck," she said.

*

Lara struggled vainly against von Lieberman's grip. Shocked, winded and almost paralysed with fear at the unthinking rage which filled his eyes. Her vision began to blur and then...

And then she was lying on the floor, her throat sore, while von Lieberman leaned against the leg of the breakfast table and shook with terror. He was staring in horror at his own hands, as though he had never seen them before. Elise lay still, but her chest rose and fell with steady, even breaths.

"What have I done?" he whispered, appalled.

"Sir?" Lara croaked.

He looked up at her, his eyes blank and bewildered. Lara had known many men who would hit her and then say that they did not know what had possessed them and she had little time for them. Von Lieberman, however, looked so lost that her heart went out to him, despite his moment of violence.

"What have I done?" he asked again.

Lara crawled on her hands and knees to von Lieberman's side. "It's alright, sir," she murmured, cradling his head against her shoulder. "It's over."

 

"But _why_ is it over?" Mariana demanded, furiously. She stared accusingly at the bank of gauges. "The power still flows," she said. "Dahak stirs in his cradle and the power runs through you and out through the apparatus. If not to von Lieberman then where is it going?" She turned and looked at Daniel. "Your mind is wandering," she accused, bombarding him once more with images of von Lieberman.

"No," Daniel replied, resisting the pressure as best he could. "My mind is focused."

Mariana's eyes widened in realisation. "On whom?" she asked in a terrified whisper.

"On someone...very special," he assured her.

*

The pepper bomb was a nasty surprise for all concerned. The hell hounds went berserk and attacked each other, the larger of the two beasts tearing open the smaller and thrusting its blunt muzzle into the bleeding wounds in a frenzied attempt to cleanse itself of the stinging, stinking chemicals.

The senses of the Commandos were sharpened by Dahak's touch and Zelig almost lost control of them as well. In the end, she was forced to employ the Scream. This sonic device emitted a pulse that was audible only to Commandos, Goa'uld and certain lower animals, at sufficient pressure that the sound wave alone was crippling. Zelig herself was almost incapacitated by the Scream, but she was accustomed to pain by long experience and was able to set it aside and concentrate on bringing the Commandos back under control.

At last she thought that things were back under control, but that was when the Dahak pulse struck her. It began – as it always did – with a white-hot sensation at the back of her neck, which spread through her body in a pleasurable wave. Most creatures responded to the Dahak energies with blind, unthinking rage, but a few – Iblis included – had a very different reaction. Without thought, she clutched at the nearest Commando and forced a kiss on his mouth.

The Dahak rage left no room for lust, however, and the Commando treated this as though it were any other assault. He reacted without thought by thrusting Zelig away, the one thing more likely than the Dahak effect itself to drive a Goa'uld into a killing rage.

Zelig lifted her MP40 and shot the Commando through the heart. Enough of her mind remained rational – between the opposing poles of raw desire and unreasoning aggression – to know that this must of course provoke the remaining Commandos to return fire and so Zelig shot them down as well. They were well trained and extremely hard to kill and so a few shots were fired in retaliation before the last Commando fell. Bullets plucked at her clothes and she barely noticed; even when her left arm was pierced.

*

Veidt slammed the switch closed and ripped Daniel out of the straps. She hurled him across the laboratory floor in a rage.

"You planned this!" she accused, her eyes burning white.

"No," he assured her. "I'm just good at improvising."

"You will regret this," she promised.

"I don't doubt it," Daniel replied, ruefully.

*

The MP40 clicked as Zelig turned it on the hell hound, but it knew loyalty only to Ahriman and thus saw no need to attack Zelig. Before she could draw her knife and lunge for the animal, her rage fled and she realised what she had done.

A shot rang out and the hell hound fell. Still dazed, Zelig looked down at her empty submachine gun as though the last bullet had taken an inexplicably long time to travel from the chamber to the beast. Only when another shot punctured her chest did she realise that her prey had become her predator.

Bleeding, dying, Zelig turned and fled.

 

Gretel moved to give chase, but she would have had to cross the clearing, impregnating herself with that indelible stink. Even if she circled the clearing, then caught up to Iblis, she would leave a trail that could be followed. She had to think of the big picture; the defeat of Ahriman.

Regretfully, she let Iblis go and faded back into the woods.

*

Veidt flung Daniel back into his room; he was surprised not to be given back to the bare cell.

"With your aid, my beloved," she told him, in a voice as thick and sweet as sugar syrup, "I could have conquered this world; driven it all to its knees before me with just a few thousand deaths, precisely targeted. Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt; a few generals, perhaps some kings and queens, to make a point. The kind of people _you_ hardly care for."

"I won't be a part of your conquest," Daniel assured her.

Mariana laughed out loud. "But, my dove, do you imagine you have stopped me? I shall still conquer, but now I shall have to kill _millions_."

Daniel's blood ran cold; he could not convince himself that this was bluster.

"Think on it, Daniel," she urged. "Millions of deaths, unguided and undeserved. Millions, slain by the hands of those they love; those they trust. Millions of dead; millions of killers; but all of it _your fault_ , my lamb."

"My God," Daniel muttered again.

Mariana smiled, beatifically. "In time, my love," she assured him. "In time."

*

Amy lay in the undergrowth, facing the hut where they had stayed two nights before. There were lights under the blinds now and a curl of smoke from the chimney. Behind her, the bracken crackled.

"What do you think?" Amy asked.

"Old friends," Tom replied. He lay down beside her and proffered a small device. "Recognise it?"

"A tripwire alarm," Amy realised. "I've seen one like it before, but..."

"Last year," Tom told her. "Hammond's friends. Check your tracker."

Amy did as she suggested. In addition to Tom, a second temporal trace showed on the display...less than ten feet away to their left.

As one, the two of them turned, levelling their carbines.

"Come out!" Tom directed.

"I have you both covered!" the reply came, but a slight uncertainty suggested that he had been caught just before getting into position. Tom was glad; he knew the voice and with the advantage of position, the man could have taken them both.

"Commander O'Neill?" Amy called.

There was a pause. "Captain Kawalsky?"

"Captain?" Tom asked.

Amy took a deep breath, and then raised her carbine, signalling for Tom to do the same. "It's _Colonel_ O'Neill, isn't it!” she called. “You're with Dr Jackson?”

The bushes rustled and the tall, grizzled figure of the Praetorian Commander emerged. “You've seen something of Daniel?” he asked.

“Practically all of him,” Amy replied. “But that's neither here nor there,” she added hurriedly.

O'Neill sighed. “Come down to the hut,” he invited. “You can tell me what he's got himself into now and explain exactly where you sprang from.”


End file.
